Have you ever wondered what life was like in Jacksonville half a century ago? It was a different era of history, culture and politics but there are often parallels between the kind of stories that made headlines then and today. As interesting as the differences may be, so are the similarities. These are some of the top stories from this week in 1962. The items were compiled from the Jacksonville Public Library’s periodical archives by Staff Writer Max Marbut.
• Two inmates who escaped from a Duval County Courthouse detention cell were captured two days later after a high speed chase of several miles.
The escapees were apprehended driving a station wagon police said had been stolen at 10th and Pearl streets.
The two men had ripped open an overhead ventilator and crawled between the ceiling and the third floor of the courthouse. They made their escape through a fire exit after dropping to the floor of a deserted corridor.
Hours after the inmates were captured, Sheriff Dale Carson appeared before the weekly meeting of the Board of County Commissioners to request appointment of a committee to devise means of preventing escapes such as had just occurred.
Carson said the detention facilities behind the two Criminal Court rooms were the weakest in the jail.
“You can almost take your fist and go through the ceiling back there,” he said.
Carson told the commissioners that while the walls in the detention cells were steel, the ceilings offered an escape route by which a prisoner could get to almost any office in the courthouse.
Commission Chairman Bob Harris appointed a committee consisting of Building Supervisor Bert Hooper, Chief Deputy William Whitehead and County Engineer John Crosby to study the situation and recommend a remedy.
• A P2-V Neptune patrol bomber from squadron VP-18 based at Naval Air Station Jacksonville “scrambled” from a naval base in Puerto Rico and was the first to home in on astronaut Scott Carpenter, whose space capsule fell into the Atlantic Ocean more than 200 miles from its projected landing area.
Carpenter was the second American to orbit the Earth, following astronaut John Glenn, who was rescued after his Feb. 20 flight by the destroyer Noa, which was stationed at Naval Station Mayport.
Crew members spotted Carpenter bobbing in his life raft next to the space capsule, Aurora 7, and they broke to the world the news that the astronaut was safe.
Lt. Jimmie Hickman, the pilot, said the aircraft had no difficulty tracking down Carpenter after detecting automatic electronic signals which came from the capsule.
“We came over him at about 500 feet and there he sat, waving to us,” Hickman said.
VP-18 personnel took part in most of the Project Mercury launches, which began in 1959 with unmanned flights. The squadron was credited with the initial sighting of Ham, the space chimpanzee, whose flight was a forerunner of manned orbital missions.
• A County Jail prisoner cut his throat during a brief court appearance in Criminal Court but survived.
Chief Warden Tom Heaney said it took 41 stitches to close the wound after Robert Henry Beigay, 46, caused a commotion in the courtroom by slashing his throat with a small razor blade concealed in his hand.
The cutting occurred before Criminal Court Judge A. Lloyd Layton. After treatment at Duval Medical Center, Beigay was returned to jail.
Beigay had pleaded guilty to grand larceny. Immediately after Layton deferred his sentencing, the defendant, standing before the bench, slit his throat.
Assistant County Solicitor Lou Frost, who was standing next to Beigay, recoiled in horror. Frost said later he thought Beigay was just scratching his throat until he saw the blood flowing.
Deputy Sheriff W.B. Thomas, a bailiff in the courtroom, rushed forward and seized Beigay before he could inflict further damage upon himself.
City detective Sgt. Ed Perry applied pressure to stem the bleeding until a doctor arrived to give first aid. An ambulance was called and Beigay was taken to the hospital.
Frost said Beigay gave no hint of his intentions when Frost conferred with him shortly before the incident. Layton also said the defendant appeared to be calm.
Heaney later said Beigay, after returning to jail from the hospital, was repentant and apologized to jailers for causing all the trouble.
• A University Boulevard jeweler was beaten severely with a pistol and robbed during a power failure.
Christopher Chapman, 54, operator of Chapman Jewelry at 1411 University Blvd., said a lone bandit escaped with more than $2,000 in jewelry and expensive wristwatches.
Chapman told police the man who robbed him had earlier come into his store and ordered a type of wedding band Chapman did not have in stock. Chapman told the man to come back in two days to pick up the ring.
“The man came in and walked straight up to me. He pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and said, ‘don’t start any trouble and there won’t be any,’” Chapman told police.
The lights were out in the store because of a widespread power failure at the time of the robbery.
The bandit walked to the rear of the store, removed a new leather briefcase from a display case and ordered Chapman to accompany him behind the jewelry and watch counters while the robber filled the briefcase with loot.
The bandit forced Chapman into a restroom, shoved him against the wall and began beating him in the back of his head with the revolver, police said.
Two nearby merchants heard Chapman’s screams and ran out the back doors of their businesses to see the bandit run from the scene and into a wooded area.
Bloodhounds from the State Prison Camp at Callahan, which had been brought to Jacksonville to search for an escaped convict, were used in a brief, unsuccessful, effort to track the robber through the Arlington area.
The power outage was attributed to a “light mist” that settled on dusty generating equipment at the J. Dillon Kennedy Generating Station. The combination of dust and moisture caused an arc that rendered the entire plant inoperative, said Samuel Newman, plant supervisor.
Power was lost by more than half of the City Electric Co.’s 165,000 customers.
• The Florida State Board of Health announced that a type of bacteria caused food poisoning that made more than 300 children and adults ill at Pine Forest Elementary School.
The specific bacterium was identified as “the dysentery bacillus, Shigella flexneri, type 2,” the report stated.
Investigators determined that of the 374 people who became ill, 324 were known to have eaten the cafeteria’s turkey salad the day of the infection.
“Although only 227 lunches were served that day, the common practice in the schools is for children to swap foods between lunches and school-prepared lunches,” the report stated.
Jack Whittington, administrator of Brewster Methodist Hospital, reported the last hospitalized victim of the outbreak had been discharged from the hospital. Those treated at Duval Medical Center also had been discharged.
About half of the people who suffered from the food poisoning had been admitted to hospitals.
• Ten Jacksonville area men were among 166 candidates who passed the state Bar examination.
The examinations were March 19-21 in Miami. The candidates would be sworn in as Bar members in a ceremony June 1 before the Florida Supreme Court.
The Jacksonville men were Robert G. Alexander, Capt. Henry A. Collette, John F. Gaillard, Homer H. Humphries Jr., Henry F. Perritt Jr., George A. Stelogeannis, Walter P. White Jr. and Joe R. Young Jr.
Richard J. Riley and Charles B. Evans were from Atlantic Beach.
• Johnny Lee Davis, 22, a former teller at the State Bank of Jacksonville, was found not guilty of charges that he embezzled $1,000 from the bank on April 18, 1960.
A U.S. District Court jury deliberated only 10 minutes before bringing in the verdict.
Davis was accused of taking a bag containing $1,000 in coins from the cage of the bank’s head teller and adding it to the cash in his own cage to cover up a reported shortage of some $750 which had accumulated over a long period.
An investigation by bank auditors began when the head teller’s cage ended up $1,000 short at the end of the day and Davis’s cage had $1,000 more than he could account for.
During the two-day trial Davis and his attorneys, Perry Penland and Walter Shea, did not contest the basic elements of the government’s allegations.
However, they argued that Davis was not charged with any embezzlement or misappropriation of funds in connection with the accumulated shortage and that he had not extracted the $1,000 from the bank premises or converted it to his own use.